Disk recording and/or reproduction apparatus are available which can perform recording, reproduction or both of recording and reproduction of an information signal onto and/or from a disk-type recording medium such as a magneto-optical disk. Some of such disk recording and/or reproduction apparatus can perform recording and/or reproduction of an information signal onto and/or from both of a disk-type recording medium having a diameter of 8 cm and another disk-type recording medium having another diameter of 12 cm.
In such disk-type recording and/or reproduction apparatus, a disk-type recording medium is mounted onto the disk table by a method wherein such mounting is performed manually or another method wherein such mounting is performed automatically using a disk loading mechanism.
In order to implement the method wherein mounting is performed manually, some disk recording and/or reproduction apparatus are configured such that the disk table has engaging pawls mounted for resilient displacement in radial directions on the disk table such that, when a disk-type recording medium having a diameter of 8 cm or another disk-type recording medium having another diameter of 12 cm is pressed at an inner circumferential edge thereof against the engaging pawls, the engaging pawls are resiliently displaced to allow the disk-type recording medium to be mounted onto the disk table.
In order to implement the method wherein mounting is performed automatically, some disk recording and/or reproduction apparatus of the tray type which have a disk tray supported for drawing out movement on a body section are configured such that a receiving recess for a disk-type recording medium having a diameter of 8 cm and another receiving recess for another disk-type recording medium having another diameter of 12 cm are formed concentrically on the disk tray and, when a disk-type recording medium having the diameter of 8 cm or another disk-type recording medium having the diameter of 12 cm is placed in one of the receiving recesses and the disk tray is accommodated into the body section, the disk-type recording medium is mounted onto the disk table.
In order to implement another method wherein mounting is performed automatically, a disk recoding and/or reproduction apparatus of a slot-in type wherein a disk-type recording medium is inserted through a disk slot formed in a body section is configured such that, when a disk-type recording medium is inserted through the disk slot and drawn into the body section, it is mounted onto the disk table.
However, in the conventional disk recording and/or reproduction apparatus described above wherein a disk-type recording medium is manually mounted onto the disk table, since the inner circumferential edge of the disk-type recording medium is pressed against the engaging pawls, there is the possibility that the inner circumferential edge may be damaged or the disk-type recording medium may be deformed.
Meanwhile, in the conventional disk recording and/or reproduction apparatus described above wherein a disk-type recording medium is mounted automatically onto the disk table, irrespective of whether the disk recording and/or reproduction apparatus is of the tray type or the slot-in type, a disk-type recording medium is mounted onto the disk table after it is mechanically or electrically detected whether the disk-type recording medium is a disk-type recording medium having the diameter of 8 cm or another disk-type recording medium having the diameter of 12 cm or an outer circumferential edge of the disk-type recording medium is held down by control means to control the position of the disk-type recording medium. Therefore, those disk-type recording media which can be mounted onto the disk table are limited to a disk-type recording medium having the diameter of 8 cm and another disk-type recording medium having the diameter of 12 cm.
However, while increase of the recording density on a disk-type recording medium and diversification of recording media proceed further in the future, in addition to disk-type recording media having the diameters of 8 cm and 12 cm, various disk-type recording media having various diameters may be placed on the market with a high degree of possibility. However, such conventional disk recording and/reproduction apparatus as described above cannot cope with such various disk-type recording media having various diameters as described above.
Therefore, it is a subject of the present invention to provide a disk loading mechanism and a disk recording and/or reproduction apparatus which overcome the problem described above and can prevent occurrence of a malfunction upon mounting of a disk-type recording medium onto a disk table and besides allows mounting of a disk-type recording medium onto the disk table irrespective of the size of the disk-type recording medium.